


slip, slip, kiss

by bittersnake



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Knitting puns, background finnrose - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-01
Updated: 2019-01-01
Packaged: 2019-09-25 22:05:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17129573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bittersnake/pseuds/bittersnake
Summary: Honestly, this was not one of her greatest ideas but Rey will make it work.





	slip, slip, kiss

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sciosophia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sciosophia/gifts).



> HAPPY NEW YEARS sciosophia!  
> I hope you enjoy!

_In through the front door,_

There's a crow in human form beyond the glass window of the small store. For a moment, Rey reflects on her life and choices leading up to this moment. She takes in a deep breath of the brisk winter air. Mentally preparing herself for her self-inflicted quest. She enters _The Skein of Amontillado_.

Upon first glance, Rey wonders if she's in the right place. While she doesn't know much about knitting or yarn;beyond coming across multiple threads referencing why crocheting socks is Bad Idea and You Are Insane to Consider It, she always assumed that a knitting store would be more...homey. A benign old wizen lady in the corner, click-clacking away with their her needles. Or something other than the scene she comes across.

The room is laden from top to bottom with barrels. Small barrels, the color of dark honey, propped on their sides filled with various odds and ends, that she could and would not try to identify. Large barrels, bound with black metal bands, filled to the brim with puffs of something that somehow looks both warm and airy at the same almost like cotton?? And various sizes in between filled with yarn. _Yes, I'm definitely in the right place,_ she thinks. 

Now for the hard part.

The aforementioned crow, who is not actually a crow. U _nless a crow suddenly decided to scavenge steroids,_ Rey thinks wryly as she approaches the counter. The man is very pale, very tall (which is saying something for a woman of her stature), and fills out the black sweater he's wearing surprising well. It looks expensive. She takes in the patrician line of his nose, the surprising softness of his jaw, and the dark dark lush hair that just brushes the nape of his neck and hides the tips of his ears and the silver earring dangling from a lobe.

“Did you want something,” the man mutters. His attention heavily fixated on the magazine in front of him. 

She leans over to glance at the evidently engrossing reading material. And is utterly confused.

It's two pages filled with boxes? Boxes filled with x's, dots, and various lines and oh fuck this is really a convoluted way to go about acquiring a present but she is Committed, damnit, and she didn't accidentally send this pattern to the department printer to give up now. That, and she's never going to forget the look on Admin Pio's face when he handed the copies to her was an added bonus (and mortification, she really needs to get him a nice Employee Awareness Week gift this year).

A throat clears. 

She looks up, and remembers the reason she's here. It also places her face distressingly close to his. 

He has a very large nose, an light sprinkling of moles that somehow enhance his face instead of obscuring it, and very nice lips and-- honestly, nice seems like an understatement but she's never been good with words and much better with her hands, he also has large hands. Why is she here again? 

"Do you need something?" The look on his face is a mixture of disturbed and confused. _Oh yeah, we're literally up in his face Rey. Good job._ Well, in for a penny in for a pound, she thinks. 

"I need to learn how to knit," she begins rummaging through her satchel to pull out the print out. "I have a month and I want to knit this," placing the printout for the "Willy Warmer" on the counter.

 _Oh god, he even blushes amazingly,_ she notes as he takes in the pattern.

"You need to learn how to knit this...., why exactly?" he chokes out.

"It's a gift, obviously."

"Ah." 

_Around the back_

This was a horrible idea. Mind you, she's in academia working on sustainability in the fucking States, so coming up with horrible life choices is par for the course but really this may be the worst idea she's come up with for 2018. 

Rey's surrounded by yarn, which good grief nice yarn is expensive, but Kylo insisted that "items that are to be worn close to the skin must be of Good Quality" (yes, capitals are included because somehow even his voice is fucking extra. And amazing. If her last "private time" session happened involved her replaying in her head him extolling the virtues of "fingering" weight yarn...well that's between her and her thankfully out of town neighbors.)

But either way, she vastly underestimated the complexity of a gag gift. Honestly, she didn't even need to _get_ let alone _make_ a gag gift. She has a perfectly good engagement gift, courtesy of Etsy, and she could have just gone with that. In her defense, it's totally Finn's fault; during their regular coffee date confessing as much as he loves Rose, he's terrified of moving all the way to Chicago and, in his words, "freezing his balls off for love", but what can you do? Academia's a bitch and sadly good positions are hard to find and he and Rose lucked out with UChicago giving offers to both of them. They even have a place to stay for a few months due to Poe letting them crash at his place before their lease starts. 

Rey's happy for them. If anything, they deserve happiness most of all. She would give the world for Finn and she knows and trusts that Rose would do the same for him. A small part of her just wishes that a little bit of happiness would come her way. Finn has been her closest friend since the first time she slugged him in the face-- in her defense, he had her cat in his arms at the time and she hadn't seen Beebee in a week and she was terrified that someone was going to try and drown him-- luckily, he's also incredibly forgiving. She's going to miss him. 

It's not like she won't be able to talk or see him. Chicago is only a few hours away by plane and Southwest has plenty of sales that even a broke post-doc can afford but it's not the same. It will never be the same. 

He's leaving her. Just like everyone else.

She sighs, looks at the pile of unraveled yarn, that Beebee is currently rolling about in, and casts on, yet again.

_Peep through the window_

She's gotten used to her lessons with Kylo _\--my real name is Ben but I wanted to do something not dependent on my family's name_ , he confesses one evening during a lesson-- there's a refreshing bluntness in his interactions. His dry wit and the random pearls of his past he sometimes drops during her lessons, in between customers. 

He's single. Had a partner briefly in university and then they grew apart when he started graduate school. 

He's ten years her senior. He picked up knitting in graduate school under the suggestion of his therapist. 

He has cat, that he sometimes brings to work with him called Novae. She's large, black, fluffy Maine Coon and supposedly hates humanity as much as her owner. And yet, consistently crawls into her lap every time Rey stops by. 

He was estranged from his parents for fifteen years, and only recently has started talking to them again. It's a process. She senses it's something that’s still raw in his life.

She almost feels guilty for hiding the fact that she picked up knitting by the second lesson-- she's always been good with her hands-- but Rey's lonely and honestly, she is shamefully enjoying having Ben slowly guide her fingers through the repetitive movements of knitting. And then, after going through a few rows with her, he lets her continue with her assignment-- Rey can tell he was in academia once upon a time, he gives her assignments at the end of every lesson, and continues with his own work, a large cabled afghan. They work in companionable silence.

But like all things good things in her life, it comes to an end.

The "gift" is finished. It's in a bag-- 

"I work in sustainability, using wrapping paper would be an affront to my field."

"You forgot to buy wrapping paper, didn't you."

"...maybe.”

\-- nicely ensconced in tissue paper along with a small bottle of wool shampoo for cleaning purposes. 

She feels lost.

As long as she was knitting this....thing. She knew that things weren't changing. Static. Familiar. But now, the gift is done. Her best friend-- her very first true friend-- is leaving. 

"I know it's selfish," she says softly worrying the crisp paper in her hands. "And I am happy for him, I just--- everyone moves on without me. At the end of the day, I'm still here. Alone."

A hand, large and warm, wraps around her own. "Hey," he tilts her tear-stained face up towards him. "You're not alone."

She closes the gap and kisses him. 

He stills for a moment and she fears that she took everything from the past six weeks the wrong way. There were no longing looks, lingering fingers. It was all in her head. 

But then, he leans into the kiss. Gently running his tongue against her lips. Hand, lightly cupping her jaw and fingers tangling in her hair. They part briefly and then, he initiates the kiss. This time firmer, harder, like he's been stranded in a desert and she's an oasis. She climbs into his lap, desperate to closer. 

It feels amazing. 

It ends too soon. 

They're both breathing hard. Her lips feel bruised. His eyes are dark pools and his hands are still wrapped in her hair.

Slowly they untangle themselves, awkward, unsure. 

"I need to close the shop," he mutters. She thinks. She's not certain.

_And off jumps Jack!_

Rey's back at _The Skein of Amontillado_ again. They loved her gift-- It's rose-colored. _You made me, a rose-colored dick sock._

And now she's back because--- well, it's time to stop being alone and try to move forward in life. Key word being, try. She thinks he's interested? She's fairly sure he's interested. She takes a deep breath, and enters. 

RING RING

"Hello, welcome to The Skein of---," He looks up. "Oh, it's you."

"Hey."

"Hello."

Well, might as well be direct.

"You, told me once," she looks down at the bag she brought with her to the store. "That if you make your partner a sweater before you're married that means you'll breakup." She fishes the item out of the bag. "What does it mean if you make a guy you like a dick sock before you're even dating?"

He stares at her and the item. It's blue. He mutters something under his breath, flushing.

"What was that?"

"I said, it won't fit."

"Did I make it too big," she winces. _Way to go Rey, already screwing up this relationship._

"It's too small."

A beat.

She stares at him dead in the eye. "Prove it."

He swallows.

"Okay."

* * *

It was too small. 


End file.
